This is a little flashback – when I was 4 I went to kindergarten in New Orleans, where I lived at the time, and I have a very vivid memory. At recess, the two teachers would drag out two boxes of toys for the kids to play with, and there was a little plastic gun that would click when you pulled the trigger. Every recess, one boy, Adrian would get it and run around, clicking it in the air and smiling, looking like he was having the most amazing time, the absolute best fun that could be had, ever. So I watched him at the next recess. He went to one box, stuck his hand down one side and came out with the gun.

The next recess I was ready. I loitered around the entrance where the teachers brought out the toys. When the first box hit the asphalt I was ready. I stuck my hand down the side and grabbed… nothing. I looked up to see Adrian pull the gun out of the other box and run off, clicking and grinning, completely unaware of the reckless way he was destroying my plans of having that ultimate fun.

I went to my teacher and with crocodile tears, proclaimed “Adrian always has the gun, I can’t use it and play.” Immediately he was asked to share it, and let me use it for a while. He reluctantly handed it over, and I lit up inside! I turned around and put it up in the air and began clicking!

IT WAS… boring. No rush of exhilaration, no adrenaline. Not even kind of fun. I was standing alone, cheap perfunctory toy clutched in my too-small hands, and I was filled with disappointment. No fun to be had here. I quickly divested myself of it and spent the rest of the recess wandering aimlessly about the playground.

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So let me throw out a hypothetical situation here, and see how you’d deal with it. You wake up one Sunday morning, and walk out to find your child, a beautiful, darling, precocious 3 year old has awakened before you. Looking for something to amuse herself, she happens upon the bag of fingerpaints that your lovely wife has left out to take to Sunday School that morning. Put 2+2 together and she decides to paint us a lovely picture. On the living room carpet.
My wife started cleaning up until she had to go to church, and I was left with the remnants. Mmm Parenting.

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I’ll play too

Copy this list of authors, and replace any that aren’t in your bookshelf with ones that are. Replacements are in bold

1. David Eddings
2. Larry Niven
3. Eric Schlosser
4. Max Brooks
5. Neil Gaiman
6. Stephen King
7. Chris Claremont
8. Robert Pirsig
9. Michael Crichton
10. William Shakespeare

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So 2005 is here. Yesterday was my birthday, and I turned 30. I think that having a birthday so close to the new year is good, because I can associate things that happened during a year in my life to a calendar year, and having associations like that make that little OCD part of my brain happy. I’m going to post a blurb about my birthday and aging soon, but I have a lot of thoughts rambling through my head that I want to get out.

I’ve been really looking forward to 2005 and for a lot of reasons. I think that 2004 was probably the worst year of my life. It was rough personally and not outstanding professionally. I lost my father and maternal grandmother, my last living grandparent. I cried a lot, watched my family blossom into an amazing group of adults that I love to be with and spend time with, watched the birth of my first son and I guess that things will balance out.

I had a really good conversation with my friend Darren and he told me that last year was the ‘Year Of Humility’. That has been quite true in my life, and I am hopefully better for it. He also told me that 2005 is the ‘Year of Favour.”

I like that.

I have a great project that I’ve been working on and I’m hoping and wishing and praying that it works out, because it could be big (no, bigger than that.) I’ve been working really hard and taking a lot of pride in it, hoping that we’re going to make it. More on it soon. I also am thinking a lot about things that I want to accomplish in 2005. I’m not talking about resolutions, because I can resolve to do anything at any time. These are things where I really want my life to change, hopefully for the better. OK, I guess they are almost the same :). I want to blog more and worry less. I want to teach my daughter to skate and shoot, and my son to walk. I want to visit the country more, and deal with traffic less (YEAH VTA). I want to spend more time with my wife. I want to lose a little bit of weight, and do it slowly and healthily. I want to start a journal, (that’s like an analog blog for those technocrati among you ;) of ideas and wisdom that I want my kids to know someday. An entry on parenting, one on aging, one on faith, one on love. All the things that are important to me, and especially things that I’ve had trouble with. I have another entry or 2 that I want to write about today even, so hopefully I’ll do that too. But, as I am fond of saying… “Sometimes Real Life gets in the way.”

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On a blog I read semi-regularly, there was a cool idea and since was just thinking something similar, I decided to go along with it. Don’t cheat, be true to the spirit, eh! Basically, hit shuffle on your mp3 list and post a line from each song. Then ppl try to guess what song it is. I’ll note if it’s a cover too. :)

1) Now send out all your letters, and write it in the sky

2) Say the devil is my savior, but I don’t pay no heed

3) And she’s so smart and independent, I don’t think she needs me

4) Gabriel stands and confirms I’ve created my own prison

5) all good people on guard defending our rights in the home and native land

6) absorbant and yellow and porous is he

7) my sticky paws were into making straws out of big fat slurpy treats

8) But as it works its way on in, the pain grows stronger…

9) There was meaning, but she sold him to the state

10) I was all out of juice like a moose, like a moose denied

11) (this was Mozart’s Piano sonata 11, so I had to pick another :)

12) A candy bar, a falling star, or a reading of doctor seuss

13) What the newsman on the television said, He said the king of rock’n’roll was dead

14) Have you come here to play Jesus To the lepers in your head

15) I’m Martin Sheen. I’m Steve McQueen. I’m Jimmy Dean.

16) So when, we dance, My lead it ain’t so graceful

17) Live and learn from fools and from sages

18) Life limped along at subsonic speeds

19) Hungry and hollow for all the things you took away

20) Why does my heart Skip a crazy beat? For I know It will reach defeat

21) Some folks inherit star spangled eyes (would have given more here but this should be enough)

22) Run faster, her laughter burns you up inside

23) And I swear to God and on my mother’s grave

24) Think you’re really righteous, you think you’re pure of heart?

25) Well, well it’s all the same mistake Dead to rights and wide awake

Leave a comment with your guesses or if you do the same.

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